These three levels of government – county, city and special district – each endeavor to address issues on their own, and (if possible) they try to address issues in complementary ways. It seems we will hear yet more about this in future sessions. It affects each of these governmental representatives in slightly different ways, from combating homelessness to retaining talented workers to working with landowners and developers in the SOAR era. One concern of note that came up for each panelist is common to concerns we have heard in previous sessions: a lack of affordable housing in the county. Often in this discussion, governance questions turned to a question of control: for the Mayor, feeling like the state exercised too much control over the rights of cities for the Supervisor, feeling pinched by the state and by the proposition-based system of governance, through unfunded mandates and often under-informed choices (respectively) handcuffing the board and for the District Manager – and this issue touches all levels of government – pensions are an onerous issue for which there seems to be little recourse. In the morning portion of our VCLA session, we were fortunate to have a discussion panel with representatives from those levels of local government: Rob McCoy, the Mayor of Thousand Oaks Kelly Long, Supervisor, County of Ventura and Dan Paranick, District Manager of Rancho Simi Recreation District. You won’t find folks in “unincorporated Allegheny County.” This stands in stark contrast to what we have in Ventura County – cities, unincorporated areas in the county and special districts. On to those contrasts: if you were to retrace my trip while wearing VCLA goggles, the first thing you might notice when you leave the Pittsburgh airport is that you will likely travel through township after borough after city on your way to your destination. I felt like the Karate Kid when he realized all of the house-painting and car-waxing had been clever preparation for a more meaningful purpose.
That conversation transitioned into housing, education, tax burden distribution and more.Ĭohort 24 members are grasshoppers, gaining knowledge and skill that will be useful beyond their expectations.
I never expected to be asked, outside of the VCLA experience, what our greatest crop exports were, yet there I was at the Noodlehead noodle shop in Pittsburgh having a conversation about agriculture in Ventura County. Conversations I took part in with life-long Western Pennsylvanians were dramatically informed by my recent learnings.
In the morning portion of the Local Government focus session, the subjects we covered about city government, county government and special districts may not have a greater available organizational and cultural juxtaposition in America than what I just experienced on this trip to Pennsylvania, and I hope to be able to cast a certain light on the session by way of contrast and comparison.įirst, though, I want to make a more general note regarding my experience of VCLA on the whole up to this point, again through this filter of travel. As I write this, I am on Southwest Airlines, flying to Denver on my way back home via Burbank. Shortly after our January 11 VCLA session, I took a trip to Pittsburgh for work. 4 Degrees of Separation By Merrill Whatley